Hackaday Links: October 9, 2016

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Atari is back! That’s what some dude says. There are no real details in that post, other than ‘Atari is Back!’

The ESP32 is coming, and it’s going to be awesome. Espressif has just released an Arduino core for the ESP32 WiFi chip. The digitalRead, digitalWrite, SPI, Serial, Wire, and WiFi “should” work. If you’re looking for ESP32 hardware, they’re infrequently available and frequently out of stock. Thankfully, stock levels won’t be the Raspberry Pi Zero all over again until someone figures out how to run an NES emulator on the ESP32.

Tiny, cheap ARM boards would make for great home servers if they had SATA or multiple network interfaces. Here’s a Kickstarter for a board with both. It’s based on an ARM A53 with multiple Ethernets, mini PCIe, enough RAM, and SATA. It’s a board for niche use cases, but those uses could be really cool.

You’re not cool or ‘with it’ until you have a PCB ruler. That’s what all the hip kids are doing. For wizards and dark mages out there, a simple PCB ruler isn’t enough. These rare beasts demand RF rulers. There’s some weird stuff on these rulers, like Archemedian spiral antennas and spark gaps. Black magic stuff, here.

Some dude with a camera in the woods did something. Primitive Technology, the best example of experimental archaeology you’ve ever seen, built a spear thrower. You can throw a ball faster with a lacrosse stick than you can with just your hands, and this is the idea behind this device, commonly referred to as an atlatl. You can hunt with an atlatl in some states, but I have yet to see a video of anyone taking down a deer with one of these.

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22 thoughts on “Hackaday Links: October 9, 2016

  1. Primitive Technology’s videos all seem to involve some sort of hack, usually hacking down a tree or part of it. You could do some serious hacking with those axes he makes.

  2. I laud Espressif for embracing the maker-community with both hands. From what I hear, the popularity of ESP8266 caught them totally off-guard, as they had never intended for it to be used by makers in the first place. Releasing an officially-supported Arduino-core is going to make the ESP32 that much more appealing to people of all skill-levels and makes it that much easier to recommend to newcomers to MCUs. The hardware has great specs, but good software-support is one of those things that tend to make or break things, even with mediocre hardware.

  3. Forget the Atari thing, WuTang clan remix of the doubtfully tuneful tunez… Shkreli will probably buy it and put it in the ET landfill, just to watch the nerdrage… though possibly performing his one and only act of public service ever.

  4. Marvell ESPRESSOBin Board Only has a single SATA so it is not really ideal for a “home” server if your are talking about a NAS. You can use a SATA multiplexer but that is not an ideal solution. It sounds like a good choice for home router. I would love to see an ARM board with PCI slots.

      1. Or Ceph which is what I’d use one for. Unfortunately while they say 2GB RAM there aren’t any available like that, nor with the eMMC populated. That and delivery to the UK is $30 (who are they using?!) so at £63.70 for one with 1GB RAM it’s kinda hard to justify vs a HP Microserver at £125 for one.

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